Friday, February 24, 2012

I was putting gas in my car the other day and having nothing better to do while waiting for the tank to fill, I participated in one of my favorite activities, people watching. I watched in horror as a woman walked into the gas station for whatever in her fuzzy froggy pajama pants. I was appalled. My jaw hung slack. I'd seen plaid flannels and lamented about those being inappropriate in public, but the fuzzies? With froggies? I'm sorry, but it's high time I talked about it. Yes, I'm talking about public display of pajamas.

Is is just me, or are human beings out of their minds regarding appropriate attire outside the home? And really, I don't think I'm far off here when I say, "There ought to be a law!" In my opinion, and you know I have one, this borders on indecent exposure. I do not want to see your jam-jams unless you are my family, and even then, I'm sometimes appalled. But privately appalled, which is a much better state of appall.

When did we get so lazy as a society that it became acceptable to choose not to put on some pants? Who started this trend? I want to know! I suspect it may have been a poor sickly person who was very ill, and having no family or friends living near, this person was forced to drag themselves to the pharmacy or the local Wal-Mart for medicine. Years ago, I would have thought, "Oh, that poor soul, too sick to dress herself." However, now I just get mad because apparently other people saw that person and thought, "Well, if they can do that, why can't I?"

What? How dare you! You can't! Not in my book, you can't! Why, if I were a badge carrying officer of the non-existent fashion police brigade, I would be handing out citations left and right. No warning ticket from me, buddy! Plus, three strikes and you go straight to prison for assault with a flannel weapon. And fuzzy froggy pj's get you an extra life sentence.

I say 'buddy', but it's normally women who I see committing this crime! Ladies, come on! Have a little self respect. You are influencing a nation's youth. It was bad enough we had the dude who started the "pants hanging halfway off your rear and letting your skivvies show" trend for young men, but now pajama bottoms and a baggy t-shirt are prevalent on any given day on a trip to the store. My own thirteen year old daughter wants to do it (shudder) when we go someplace and she doesn't have to go in, but I refuse even that. What if we get in a wreck and that's how the medical professionals find you? I would be mortified. Furthermore, make sure you have on clean underwear in case they have to cut your clothes off!

In a world of events like "no pants day" where I would be exposed to a large city full of underwear-clad subway patrons, I suppose the wearing of pajama pants in public can be expected and the lazy morality of today will do little to put a stop to it. Admittedly, there was a point in my life I would have found a pantless day humorous and would have possibly been a participant. But this isn't about me. And I'm not the old me, I'm the now me. The now me doesn't approve of such fashion atrocities, especially when they are an everyday occurrence and not an emergency. And by the way, don't you dare pair those pajamas with your fuzzy house slippers in public, missy, or I will come unglued.

Sunday, February 12, 2012

I have moved to the country. And when I say country, I mean
country. You can tell if you
live in the country by
what you find on the road when you take a walk. While walking my dogs
down to the creek recently, I found the following items:

A shotgun shell

Eight beer cans

One pair of mismatched socks

These items weren't present just
two days prior, so I knew they were recent. In my goody-goody
opinion, guns and beer are not an appropriate combo. But then again,
I have a marble fireplace and a taste for the finer things. I'd
rather read a good book and have a nice glass of Merlot than shoot
anything. None of the treasures found on my walk were my
discarded items, obviously. So, with every “save the planet”
fiber engrained in me, I picked the items up, placed them in a
discarded bag I found, and carted them home to be disposed of in a
more proper manner. I
am civilized. I
recycle.

I recognized the mismatched socks
as my daughter's. Easy enough. Back home and into the wash they would
go! She and our Great Pyrenees waded in the creek the day prior, so
that explained that one, but I knew the shotgun shell and beer cans
were not hers. That's the kind of thing camo
wearing people would leave on the road. She would not wear
camo. I'm pretty sure she's allergic to it, actually. She's thirteen
and she does have a
pink Daisy BB gun. She's not afraid to use it either! Probably not on
a moving, living, breathing target, but I digress. Just because she
may carry a gun occasionally to shoot ominous looking tree branches,
she still would not wear camo. No, no, no! She would not don
camouflage clothing even if you held a gun to her head. Mmmm,
unless perhaps it was Hollister. Or the gun was Hollister and there
was a matching camo bag or something.

The question remained, whose
shotgun shells and beer cans were they? I suspect a Bubba. Bubbas
wear camouflage clothing frequently. Furthermore, recycling isn't
likely to be foremost in a Bubba's thought process. Additionally, a
Bubba's preferred form of entertainment may include daily doses of
shotgun shells and beer cans, tossed out of truck windows, and
possibly with loud whooping and hollering robustly included. Bubbas
may even transport these items around on their four-wheeler with an
entourage of buddies following closely behind. The culprit might even
be a local small-town policeman (off duty, of course) and
appropriately named what else,
but “Bubba”. Yep, I'm pretty sure that's who did it. I blame the
Bubbas.

Monday, February 6, 2012

Recently, I colored my hair. I've done this since I was a teenager and I'm now 42 years old. It's nothing new for me. I've had it done at the salon. I've done it at home. Heck, I've even permed my own hair with no help. But this time, something was different. Oh, so different.

I spruced up the ends with some leftover blond color after doing my daughter's hair. It's Feria - good stuff, for home color. I didn't perform any torture rituals like pulling through a cap, and there we no clips to facilitate fancy partitioning of hair like in the instructions. I just dabbed some on here and there in a very haphazard manner, waited forty minutes, and rinsed. Normal. I've done it many times. I dried it and styled it just as I normally do. Done and satisfied with my handiwork, I gazed at my reflection in the mirror. I thought to myself, "Beth and Chandra would be proud!" I'd had many years of apprenticeship by watching my former hairdressers, my unknowing tutors. I have since moved far away from them, however, and have found no suitable replacements. I've made do. I was pleased with myself. I'd done a very decent job, as usual.

Then came the abnormal part, or as Marty Feldman would say in Young Frankenstein "Abby Normal." I noticed it. What was that in my hair? Why, there's some kind of discoloration there! What the..? Is that toothpaste or something? I gently lifted a section of my lovely blond hair and stared in disbelief at what lay lurking underneath.

I am inserting a clip from the original movie Psycho here because it is so very appropriate. It is exactly what ran through my mind at that very moment.

In my head, I heard the distinctive screeching musical horror violin sounds and female high pitched horror movie screaming akin to that which is heard at approximately the 45 second mark in the clip. I looked in the mirror to see if my expression matched what was running through my mind. It didn't. I was simply staring at myself with a blank expression of confusion and my jaw hanging open. My mind raced. For a moment, I struggled to find a better explanation for what I saw. It was... it... was... gray hair!

Now let me be very clear in my description of horror here. I've had gray hairs before. Many times, in fact, have I plucked individual ones from my head without any consequence or thought. But this was not a few pluckable hairs. This was a patch, a streak! "Oh my word, this is not pluckable," I thought. I checked my expression in the mirror again. I was still staring at myself in disbelief. When did this happen? How did I just now notice this? Am I going to die soon?! But I feel so young! Nooooooooooo!!!!! Whyyyyyyyy????? Why, why, whyyyyyy?

Regaining my composure, my first reaction to my own horrified reaction was laughter. "Now that was funny!" Then I thought, "I can't wait to blog about this. Wait, who would do that? Me, that's who!" So, there you have it. You are officially an observer of the horrific or hilarious, however you perceive it, aging process of Cindy Brown, your Everyday Underwear color technician. Perhaps I'll emulate Stacy London of What Not To Wear fame and just go with it. Wait, her gray streak is actually cool. Dang it! Oh well. Welcome, silver lining. Come on in. It appears you are here to stay.

I'm just a funny chick with a humor blog. I lived in the middle of nowhere in central IL until I simply died of boredom, at which time I was compelled to move to the Destin, FL area, where I am thriving once again and have become gainfully employed at a maintenance company. I know... exciting, right?

Humor writing is my passion and my blog, Everyday Underwear, is what I neglect my family for. You'll laugh, giggle, chuckle,
cry, think or spontaneously burst into flames while reading. If that
last thing happens, I am not liable. It's good, bad, and ordinary days.
It's comfortable and made of good material. It's like your everyday
underwear. You wouldn't want to go long without it.

I guarantee that you'll either be entertained or you won't, one of the
two.
I may ruffle feathers occasionally, but I try to keep my
writing clean. If your feathers do ruffle and fall out, please send them
to me. I will make a feather duster & dust off my keyboard.

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should happen to have the rare side effect of whooping laugh, please
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